Conservative hero Ben Carson hit with plagiarism scandal - Salon.com

Why is this important?

While no man is above reproach or without fault, we expect our candidates for political office to be above plagiarizing, Dr. Ben Carson is no exception. He of all people should know better,

In his 2012 book America the Beautiful, conservative activist and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson related the story of when he was caught plagiarizing as an undergraduate psychology major. ”During my research for one of the papers in an advanced psychology course, I found some passages that seemed particularly appropriate, and I included them in my writing,” Carson explained. “I did not, however, indicate that this was the work of someone else; frankly, I had never even heard of the term plagiarism.” A professor identified the plagiarized passages, Carson wrote, and their meeting over the paper prompted an epiphany: “Even though I did not know the implications of plagiarism, I certainly should have known inherently that what I was doing was wrong. I had done it before without consequences and probably would have continued doing it if I had not been caught.”

Apparently, that experience wasn’t searing enough. On Tuesday, BuzzFeed revealed that Carson plagiarized portions of the very same book in which he wrote of his college plagiarism. Although Carson often cited the works he copied in his endnotes, he did not indicate in the text of the book when he had borrowed the words of other authors.

Conservative hero Ben Carson hit with plagiarism scandal - Salon.com

UPDATE::Army War College Revokes Senator John Walsh's Degree After Plagiarism Investigation

An update to this story from July,,,

U.S. Sen. John Walsh of Montana says the U.S. Army War College has revoked his master's degree after an investigation into plagiarism allegations.

The Carlisle, Pennsylvania, college launched the probe in August after The New York Times published a story showing Walsh borrowed heavily from other sources for a research paper he wrote in 2007.

Walsh's office released a statement Friday saying the Army War College has revoked his status as a graduate. The statement says the senator disagrees with the findings but accepts the decision.

Army War College Revokes Senator John Walsh's Degree After Plagiarism Investigation

Sen. John Walsh Drops Out Of Senate Race

Sen. John Walsh (D-MT) has decided to drop out of the race for U.S. Senate, he announced on Thursday.

"I am ending my campaign so that I can focus on fulfilling the responsibility entrusted to me as your U.S. senator," Walsh said. "You deserve someone who will always fight for Montana, and I will."

Walsh's decision follows a report in The New York Times in July which said that Walsh plagiarized significant parts of his master's thesis.

Since then Walsh had reportedly been trying to decide whether to continue running in the race or not. Even before the plagiarism story broke Walsh had an uphill battle to victory and faced a formidable challenge in Rep. Steve Daines, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate.

According to National Journal, Walsh announced his decision to drop out in a call with staffers. His wife was "openly sobbing" while she thanked members of Walsh's campaign, National Journal said.

Sen. John Walsh Drops Out Of Senate Race

John Walsh, Democrat, Confronts Questions of Plagiarism - NYTimes.com

Something I pondered as I read through various articles concerning this incident, "Questions have previously been raised about Mr. Walsh’s résumé and conduct, though they were comparatively minor."

In an interview outside his Capitol Hill office on Tuesday, after he was presented with multiple examples of identical passages from his paper and the Carnegie and Harvard essays, Mr. Walsh said he did not believe he had done anything wrong.

“I didn’t do anything intentional here,” he said, adding that he did not recall using the Carnegie and Harvard sources.

Asked directly if he had plagiarized, he responded: “I don’t believe I did, no.”

On Wednesday, a campaign aide for Mr. Walsh did not contest the apparent plagiarism but suggested that it be viewed in the context of the senator’s long career. She said Mr. Walsh had been going through a difficult period at the time he wrote the paper, noting that one of the members of his unit from Iraq had committed suicide in 2007, weeks before the assignment was due.

The aide said Mr. Walsh, who served in Iraq from November 2004 to November 2005, had “dealt with the experience of post-deployment,” but said he had not sought treatment.

Later, the senator, in an interview with The Associated Press, contradicted the aide, saying that he was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder when he used the authors’ work without credit, and that he would consider apologizing to the scholars for doing so. He said he was currently taking antidepressant medication.

John Walsh, Democrat, Confronts Questions of Plagiarism - NYTimes.com

Publisher Cuts Ties With Mark Driscoll's Resurgence After Plagiarism Accusations

Tyndale House Publishers has cut ties with Mark Driscoll's Resurgence imprint, according to The Daily Beast news site. The company has removed from its website The Problem With Christianity, Driscoll's next Resurgence book slated for September release, and reportedly does not expect to publish a trade paper version of A Call to Resurgence, his first title under the imprint.

Tyndale and Driscoll's Mars Hill Church in Seattle forged a partnership to create the new imprint in April 2013. Resurgence published works by multiple authors, including Driscoll, and planned to release five to seven titles per year.

Driscoll has been embroiled in controversy regarding a decision to boost his New York Times best-seller ranking using a company called Result Source and, in a separate matter, accusations of plagiarism.

Tyndale came to the defense of the author initially on plagiarism with Ron Beers stating that Driscoll handled the situation in a "biblical manner."

Publisher Cuts Ties With Mark Driscoll's Resurgence After Plagiarism Accusations

WORLD | Unreal sales for Driscoll’s Real Marriage | Warren Cole Smith | March 5, 2014

Driscoll has been having issues of late: revamping church history  and plagiarism being the most recent. That aside,,,

Does the end, justify the means?

Seattle’s Mars Hill Church paid a California-based marketing company at least $210,000 in 2011 and 2012 to ensure that Real Marriage, a book written by Mark Driscoll, the church’s founding pastor, and his wife Grace, made the New York Times best-seller list.

According to a document obtained by WORLD, ResultSource Inc. (RSI) contracted with Mars Hill “to conduct a bestseller campaign for your book, Real Marriage on the week of January 2, 2012. The bestseller campaign is intended to place Real Marriage on The New York Times bestseller list for the Advice How-To list.”

The marketing company also promised to help place Real Marriage on the Wall Street Journal Business, USA Today Money, BN.com (Barnes & Noble), and Amazon.com best-seller lists.

[,,,]
Mars Hill would not say whether the funds for the purchase of these books, which would total approximately $123,600 for the individual sales and $93,100 for the bulk sales, came from church funds.

According to the terms of the contract between ResultSource and Mars Hill, “RSI will be purchasing at least 11,000 total orders in one-week.” The contract called for the “author” to “provide a minimum of 6,000 names and addresses for the individual orders and at least 90 names and address [sic] for the remaining 5,000 bulk orders. Please note that it is important that the make up of the 6,000 individual orders include at least 1,000 different addresses with no more than 350 per state.”

The purpose of this instruction appears to be a way to outsmart systems put in place by The New York Times and other list compilers to prevent authors from buying their way onto best-seller lists. ResultSource apparently uses other techniques to work around the safeguards of the best-seller lists. According to its agreement with Mars Hill, “RSI will use its own payment systems (ex. gift cards to ensure flawless reporting). Note: The largest obstacle to the reporting system is the tracking of credit cards. RSI uses over 1,000 different payment types (credit cards, gift cards, etc).”

Obsessed with fame much or a bit hypocritical? I vaguely remember a narrative in the Gospels about Jesus expelling the money changers from the Temple, accusing them of turning the Temple into a den of thieves through their commercial activities.

WORLD | Unreal sales for Driscoll’s Real Marriage | Warren Cole Smith | March 5, 2014